A123, a pioneer in lithium-ion batteries for electrical cars that received a $249.1 million federal grant, is getting financing worth as much as $450 million from Wanxiang Group Corp. The deal, which may give the Chinese company an 80 percent stake in A123, was opposed by Representative Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican.

“It appears the Department of Energy and the Obama administration have failed to secure sensitive taxpayer funded intellectual property from being transferred to a foreign adversary,” Stearns said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.

The prospects of A123 falling under control of a Chinese company may spark political debate over the government’s financing of alternative-energy businesses. A123 received funds from the Energy Department as part of a program started in February 2009 to support construction of U.S. plants to make batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles. Solyndra LLC, a solar panel maker, filed for bankruptcy in September, two years after getting a $535 million U.S. loan guarantee.

Unprofitable A123 needed a financial lifeline after struggling with costs from a recall of batteries for plug-in hybrid luxury carmaker Fisker Automotive Inc. A political debate over the agreement is inevitable, according to Michael Lew, an analyst at Needham & Co. in New York.

‘Lawmakers Talking’

“If you already have lawmakers talking, you can pretty much assume how it’s going to play out,” said Lew, who recommends holding A123 shares.

More important than the ownership is where the work gets done, said Lew. A123, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, has a factory in Michigan. The company also supplies batteries for General Motors Co.’s Spark electric car; Bayerische Motoren Werke AG’s BMW 5 Series hybrid sedan, and rechargeable and hybrid cars from China’s SAIC Motor Corp.

“What’s important is, even if it’s owned by the Chinese, that the jobs are here and the manufacturing is performed in the United States,” Lew said. “That’s ultimately the goal -- job creation or at least an industry fostering and helping the economic climate here in the states.”

A123 rose 2 percent to 51 cents at 11:45 a.m. New York time, after gaining 6.4 percent yesterday following the deal with Xiaoshan City, China-based Wanxiang. The stock had plunged 69 percent this year through yesterday as the costs from the recall prompted A123 to pursue additional fundraising.

Stearns’ opposition highlights the challenges Chinese companies face when expanding in the U.S. Last month, two Democrats said Cnooc Ltd.’s $15.1 billion offer to buy Nexen Inc., which holds U.S. oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico, should be held up until the U.S. negotiates concessions from China.

Buying Control

A123, which calls itself the U.S. leader in advanced batteries, used the Energy Department’s funds to build the Livonia, Michigan, factory that made the flawed Fisker packs.

“There is definitely a growing concern about foreign- controlled or -owned companies attempting to gain a foothold into our supply chain in the United States,” said Stearns, the Republican representative. “We need to make sure the federal government isn’t an unwitting accomplice to the theft of our own national secrets by providing them with multimillion-dollar government grants and loans.”

Federal Grant

The funds A123 received from the Energy Department can only be used for its U.S. operations, said Amy Brundage, a White House spokeswoman.

“Under the terms of the grant agreement, the company can only use funding to support U.S. manufacturing facilities,” Brundage said in an e-mail late yesterday. “Any changes to the scope of the grant would have to be approved by DOE, and DOE would not approve any changes that allowed the grant money to be used for anything other than investment in the manufacturing facilities here in the U.S. or U.S. jobs.”

Wanxiang would give A123 as much as $75 million in debt financing under the terms of the non-binding agreement, A123 said in a statement yesterday. Wanxiang may also buy $200 million of senior secured convertible notes and invest $175 million by exercising warrants, which could be converted for shares representing a stake of about 80 percent, according to the deal.

Wanxiang’s chairman, Lu Guanqiu, 67, was born into a family of farmers in Hangzhou, and started a farm-machinery maintenance shop in 1969 that’s grown into China’s biggest auto-parts maker, according to its website.

The company has been expanding in the U.S. It said in February that it would invest $25 million in Kansas City, Missouri-based Smith Electric Vehicles Corp., a A123 customer.

Access to China

A123 said in March it would need to adjust its fundraising plans because of the $55 million cost of recalling Fisker Karma battery packs that have misaligned hose clamps.

The Wanxiang deal “is the first step toward solidifying a strategic agreement that we believe would remove the uncertainty regarding A123’s financial situation,” Chief Executive Officer David Vieau yesterday said in the statement.

It will also provide access to customers in China, he said.

“Superior battery chemistry, which was to be a U.S. competitive advantage, is now theirs,” Bob Lutz, GM’s former vice chairman, said in reference to the Wanxiang deal in a blog post on Forbes.com. “But why are we surprised? The Chinese have all the money in the world, and if they ever called the loans they have out to the U.S., the global economy would stop, and our nation would be in foreclosure.”

29 Comments

@Brian-Bishop; Wind is somewhat predictable, but only with the right technology...
I don't believe that there must be a lot of fossil fuel generation assets in idle for every kwh of wind and solar. The more the wind and solar assets are distributed, the more their generation will overlap. Air conditioning draws the most grid demand during the summer. Solar generation peaks near the peak demand time of air conditining. Solar generates during the day, but wind generates more energy at night. The more distributed the locations of renewables are, the smoother the energy overlap and the smoother the grid support. Also, the more distributed the battery systems to support the grid are, the more effective their benefit. If all homes & businesses had a roof mounted solar system and a small battery backup with a grid connection, we might not need any fossil fuel generation. Hydro & geothermal can supply baseload power and wind and solar will add power as it can. Electricty is the universal energy! Fossil fuels should be kept in reserve for a far future need. How else will we launch rockets 500 years from now?

actually i buy 15 year old toyota camries. they get 30 miles to the gallon and run forever. I try to pay less than a grand and find them with maybe 150,000 miles on them. (although I despair of what to do in the future because I don't like the camries after the 90s, they started in with variable valve timing and all kinds of unnecessary complexity. the best were late 80s but those are getting too rusty.

And I get clothes at the second time around store.

of course everybody doesn't do that, thank god, all the more old camries for the rest of us.

I don't begrudge anybody who buys a hybrid to please themselves just as folks buy hummers to please themselves.

I do begrudge someone else trying to make the decision for me.

I remain open on the question of whether the grid can adequately predict and manage supply from renewables. I've seen some pretty good arguments that because wind is predictable it can be predicted it won't be available when peak loads need to be served and so more idle infrastructure has to be maintained. So just knowing that wind has some predictable aspects doesn't change the reality of whether it is load serving. But if all we were arguing about is the extra cost for idle back up, we'd be a lot closer.

No one has yet explained to me why it makes the least bit of sense for rhode islanders to pay an average of 34¢ a KWH to Deepwater Wind.

I don't think it makes sense to pay a dime to Transcanada or Quebec Hyrdro but at those rates you can have an argument. When you are talking Deepwater or Cape Wind, there is no argument, it is nothing but highway robbery.

As to costs decreasing every year. Bought any propane or natural gas lately?

That's always it at the end of the day, I'll buy it, but only if it makes economic sense. LOL, do you only then buy 4 year old cars and used clothing? Both of those practices make much better economic sense. Probably not, most people if they can afford to, don't. So why hold hybrid or electric cars to a different standard? One has to justify the purchase of an electric car with savings at the pumps, but the same logic isn't required when purchasing a Hummer, or some other gas guzzler. Here's the main difference to me between doing things the same old same old versus embracing renewables (other than one is sustainable). If I continue to use a gasoline powered vehicle, I'm dependent on the whims of some commodity trader. If I go electric, I can generate the electricity myself, if I choose. My costs won't fluctuate depending on if someone would rather have a lobster roll versus a hot dog for lunch that day. I really tire of all the silly economic justification arguments, like the common attacks on wind. It's intermittent, therefore lacking. Wind, just like electrical demand, is highly predictable. Or renewables don't have grid level storage, and nuclear or coal does? Or greater use of wind only increases the use of coal and natural gas. Umm, if you generate 10% of your electrical supply using renewables, that means 10% of some other more pollutive energy is no longer required. You seem comfortable leaving your wallet and economic viability open to commodity manipulation, I'm not. The price of sunshine and wind will always be the same, free. Can't say the same for the price of oil, uranium, coal, or even natural gas. The costs of solar and wind decrease each and every year, can't say the same for anything else though can we?

EIA for 2010 has US around 170 GWh of non-hydro renewables for 4.2% of generation

China 50 GWh for 1.2%. Yeah they were at virtually zilch 10 years ago and given the size of their electricty market they show up as investing in renewables technology, but this is no western scale effort.

The old 1 coal plant a week in china is wrong, it is up to 2. Their idea of renewables is three gorges. I don't have any problem with that but all the hand wringers over here want to blow up dams instead of building them.

There is considerable debate about peak oil and it depends what you classify as recoverable resource. While the price of oil isn't historically low, whenever it rises, more resources become economically recoverable. So the economic concept of peak oil and the production curve have to be integrated.

I'm not against renewables, I just think this absurdly subsidized first mover stuff is BS. It is lingo people throw around when justifying their outrageous subsidies. China got how it is by letting everybody else be the first mover and then just picking up and being efficient at industrializing and commercializing these technologies.

Even with inflation adjusted prices of oil approaching record highs, you still can't even economically justify the higher price of purchasing a Prius -nevermind an electric car. Hybrids, nonetheless, hit a bit of a pyschological sweet spot and sense of hedging against price increases. There is a fair degree of hidden subsidy as well from the original outright gvt. rebates through tax credit to govt. fleet mileage rules.

But I do think it is easier to make a case that these were pump priming and less permanent inherent subsidies. I still don't favor them and think the price of oil is a sufficient motivator.

People want electricity and the life altering electrical contraptions that make life easier, and in fact survivable. People want food. You some how assume that because people want that which we take for granted as a validation of our wasteful ways. Many of the have not countries aren't overly concerned about sustainability, they are more concerned about survival. Glad you think you live in a world of abundance and no consequence.

You talk about peak oil production as if it's somehow meaningful. Peak oil as a total of the global energy mix, is 20 years ago. That's the statistic that actually matters. Also if you do a little digging, you would find that the country you believe is building coal plants to fire our renewable future (China, and perhaps Germany) If you did even a tiny bit of research on Germany, you would know that coal is a short term stop gap to get them off of nuclear. And China is now the largest consumer of their own renewable energy products. Also one of the fastest growing sectors in renewable energy production is in the third world, as often renewables are cheaper as they don't require input stocks they don't have and can't afford.

It should tell you something when even Saudi Arabia is making huge commitments to renewable energy. Why, because even they know it's cheaper in the long run. Perhaps it's time for the trolls to come into the light, even if it is from an incandescent bulb, and see the new reality.

To: Brian, again. I don't think you understand how precarious the whole energy market is. That is why 'advanced' countries need many different sources of energy.

Right now we are developing exactly what the market demands and needs.100 years from now historians will look back on this as one of the most interesting and innovative times in our history. In a way this government subsidy of 'sustainable energy' is a national security issue. Although some unimaginative Republicans do use the failures for politcal gain, many military types know that every wind farm or solar farm built in the USA makes us more secure in many ways. What is that worth??
I hope you don't take any criticism personally, but I don't think you understand what is really happenning here. Just read and understand this newsletter. It is quite good.

Yeah, boy, that fossil fuel has been horrible. And all the countries that have the opportunity to see how bad its been are building coal plants as fast as they can to fuel the manufacture of renewables components for the guilty west. Forgive me for not feeling the requisite contrition. I need my oncandeacent bulbs at full brightness while i search all the wattage hungry server farms trying to figure out when peak oil will finally arrive and when i will have to take two steps backward so i don't drown from rising sea level.

Our way of life is so unsustainable everyone in the world wants to emulate us.

It's really quite simple, fossil fuels are not sustainable. Therefore new technology is required. If one is willing to accept that reality, then renewable energy is really a no-brainer. Investing money in developing both the technologies and the businesses that will steer global energy security costs money. Always has in the past, probably always will in the future. But the naysayers advocate only supporting the winners. It's really a myopic view of the future. For example how much money has been spent by world governments to put people into space, where the actual benefit of someone being there is negligible to everyone else who isn't. BUT... the technologies developed to put people there have transformed Western societies, everyone has benefited greatly. The space race has never made money on it's own, but industry and society has greatly benefited. Military spending, staggering amounts of trillions of dollars spent globally to protect the movement and supply of fossil fuels. Well spent money, though right? So insisting on only supporting winners in innovation is a naive and simplistic approach that will ultimately ensure failure. Which I'm reasonably sure why it's being advocated by the right. Kind of like looking at a 6 month old child and determining if they will be a contributing member of society in the future. If they don't look viable at that point, then they should be left to fend for themselves? So, we shouldn't gamble on things that might fail, instead we should invest in proven technologies (fossil fuels) with a proven track record of failure and destruction of our economy and ecology. After all, they keep the lights on at the hospitals that burning coal has necessitated. I for one think it's time for a change from the status quo.

I do agree with a measure of the criticism of Sterns for appearing to argue on both sides of the question, but the issue is we should never have given the loan in the first place and that nations don't own technology. They provide the environments in which it can be invented and commercialized.

I will bet you dollars to donuts somebody took credit for bringing jobs with A123. You can't buy jobs, if the effort is unsustainable, it collapses without artificial support. To be fair, renewable energy isn't the only boondoogle, look at Curt Schilling and 38 Studios, but we're whining and moaning that it might cost RI $75 million when Deepwater Wind will cost us $750 million.

I've got keys again so this may be easier to read, except to the extent with which you disagree and think it grossly misinformed. One supposes it is possible to have two vastly different visions of the energy industry and have some degree of truth to both, but I know of no renewable energy businesses not dependent on government subsidy.

And I mean government checks, or forced rates, or forced sales of certain kinds of cars that have to be subsidized by the rest of the manufacturers line.

Battery makers are somewhere in the ether as the question remains, what charges the batteries, so forgetting that a goverment loan is a direct subsidy, it isn't remotely clear that battery makers are or are not in the sustainable energy business.

Are you saying that A123 is an outlier? It seems like pretty much every 'renewable' or 'sustainable' energy business I know of, suck up government, i.e. our, money and ask for more. If you have better examples, I'll follow some pointers.

People talk about grid parity for renewables in the other thread that got me following discussions here. Our utility in Rhode Island is forced to make contracts averaging 35¢ a KWH with a local wind company (and that doesn't even include the federal PTC which I hope goes away anyway) when they can buy natural gas power for under a nickel, so it is hard to take people seriously when they talk about parity with imaginary unexplicated references to Dick Cheney and the Safe Drinking Water Act which shows they understand fracking about as well as I am puported to understand renewables.

Until the renewables industry condemns these rent seekers promising local politicians an'industry', they will find little sympathy from the folks paying the bills. Solyndra and A123 are just the icing on the cake.

What credence does a former GM executive have in terms of how to run anything . . . quoting GM on the future of the Car industry is like quoting former Solyndra execs on the future of renewables.

To Brian:
Although I find your messages difficult to read, I understand your drift. My only reply is that you are quite misinformed about what is happenning with 'sustainable energy' businesses.
There are hundreds of profitable sustainable energy companies in the USA employing (I don't know how many) Americans and despite your negative inferences, the future for most of them is quite bright.
One gauge is that some of their trade shows have hundreds of booths.
You should read these sustainable energy news letter more carefully.

Bishop is obviously a fossil fuel powered troll. They must work cheap, as they cannot come up with an original point instead of reciting the same lines that are on the bumper of the car in front of them. It looks like this guy is trying to type while driving, wasting energy and endangering the population, just like fossil fuels he promotes.

Military expenses are most certainly petroleum subsidies, and they run in the trillions. If we were not dependent on oil there would be no need to defend it's sources and supply routes. Perhaps one might check with the military to see how it regards renewable energy and batteries in it's operations.
http://climateandsecurity.org/2012/02/14/general-wesley-clark-on-the-next-military-mission-solar-energy/

Thanks to visionaries like steve jobs, i have no keys. Do the beat you can or skup it. While ot makes a difference toe on the larher aemsr, if you don't thinj it worth tje time i could care less. Somebody replied to me, ao o rwplied with the best yechnology abailable to me. Im a lot more worroed tjat noone can make a decent smartphones than i am about CO2.

Unstable regions. No problem with that but it is pretense tjat this is a subsidy to oil companies. The value of their syable supply increases if wprld supply goes down. Xditto for additional drilling. Tjere wer nooil companies lobnying to open ANWR. Just staye of alaska amd inupiats

Sorry. As you can see smartphones aint so amart. I could type 10 times better and faster ony clamshell format nokia amd lg envy, but were cursed because stebe jobs didnt like keys.

If you want a netter bayyery, dont reward failure be funding risky ventures just becaise they parachute a few jobs into spmeones congressional district. Reward success woth asognofocamt prozr for whoeber comes up woth it.

Just because electroc cats may make sense in 25 years is no excuse for making them wjen tjey dont make sense. Thay is not an investment, tjat is wastef resources. Should have made cats that were efficiemt at preaemt stamdards freeing capital to risk pn what technology choices will be in25 years.

The war on coal and the assumption that renewables would thus look competitive is typical of govt. Plannong. Tjey tried to dictate a direction but completely failed to anticipate directional drilling advances that make it just as likely your next car will run on natural gas as electricity.

Amd spate me this utter nonsensr about the safe drinking water exemption. Theyve been fracking for 50 years or more. This nothing new. You dont frack any wjere near drinking water. If i had nothing better to do i could sit aroynd dreaming up all kinds of ridiculous precautuonary regimes to hamstring the wind industry, like the FFEIA, free from epilepsy inductuon act. Rather , i decry such tactics.

Geopolitically, i do recognize we protect some of the worlds oil production and shipping although this mosr directly benefits pthers amd it probably would be a better policy if others directly amd jointly shouldered that responsibility or let the oil markets reset based pn some loss of aupply from oolitically

Sorry. As you can see smartphones aint so amart. I could type 10 times better and faster ony clamshell format nokia amd lg envy, but were cursed because stebe jobs didnt like keys.

If you want a netter bayyery, dont reward failure be funding risky ventures just becaise they parachute a few jobs into spmeones congressional district. Reward success woth asognofocamt prozr for whoeber comes up woth it.

Just because electroc cats may make sense in 25 years is no excuse for making them wjen tjey dont make sense. Thay is not an investment, tjat is wastef resources. Should have made cats that were efficiemt at preaemt stamdards freeing capital to risk pn what technology choices will be in25 years.

The war on coal and the assumption that renewables would thus look competitive is typical of govt. Plannong. Tjey tried to dictate a direction but completely failed to anticipate directional drilling advances that make it just as likely your next car will run on natural gas as electricity.

Amd spate me this utter nonsensr about the safe drinking water exemption. Theyve been fracking for 50 years or more. This nothing new. You dont frack any wjere near drinking water. If i had nothing better to do i could sit aroynd dreaming up all kinds of ridiculous precautuonary regimes to hamstring the wind industry, like the FFEIA, free from epilepsy inductuon act. Rather , i decry such tactics.

Geopolitically, i do recognize we protect some of the worlds oil production and shipping although this mosr directly benefits pthers amd it probably would be a better policy if others directly amd jointly shouldered that responsibility or let the oil markets reset based pn some loss of aupply from oolitically

Mark,
You misread me. Its not pessimism to say the chinese are prone to copying or buying our industrial technology. While im not purel sanguine about all the geopolitical implications im optimistic andm not xenophobic about it. I think it is human natire and im glad to see thosr opportunities in china. My point is we ate not going to have a society where we ate the brains and other culturea tje brawn. Nor can we depend on conmercializing and manufacturing something just because ot was invented here. See, e.g apple computers.

People in tje us will have to want to work at all levels of the heirarchy to capture more of the value added from instantiating ideas.but the governmemt is doing its nest to flog the work ethic out of americans telling hem tjey are nobody if they dont go to college and by implicatuon if their collar is not white. And if you cant get a job that keeps you in the means to which youve been accustommed, then the goverment will break some windows so you can get work as a glazer, i.e. remewable energy. Or they'll just pay you npt to work. If the pils teally believed in renewable energy, they wouldn pretend it is an instant jobs program. I gueas, since i think it is a complete waste of money i shpyld sleep sounder that there is no significant sincere political base for renewablr energy, just a bunch of rentseekers claiming theyve got the next best thing aince sliced bread.

To: Alligator
Yes. The only ventures that qualify for these loan guarantees are ones that don't qualify for private sector loans because they are untested, which means they are risky, which means some will fail. But they have potential.
To: Brian
Your pessimism makes me sad. To me Wainxiang's interest in this industry in America and in A123 in particularly seems like good news. Wainxiang has deep pockets to help. Are you complaining that Wainxiang might make money in 10 years if A123 succeeds in America?
Anybody who studies the car market knows that electric cars will eventually succeed here. Better batteries will be needed. Wake up.

Why isn't Mr. Stearns complaining about foreign ownership of Budweiser and Miller Beer?
Mr. Wainxiang should be applauded for trying to buy the company instead of stealing its technology or dumping competitive products. This is the same Wainxiang that opened a solar panel division in Rockford, IL, a black hole of employment in rustbelt USA.
How does Mr. Stearns, a Republican, stand on subsidizing sustainable energy projects in general? And how much of his own money does he have invested in them?

What really gets me is this low bid mentality that claims to only want the absolute cheapest product that the world can come up with. Who lives like that? Do they only buy clothes from Goodwill? Do they drive a Yugo? Do they live in a used single wide mobile home? No one wants the cheapest product as it is usually junk, that has to be bought again and again. Quality is a combination of utility and cost, a poor product that fails early, or does not perform as advertised cannot produce good value. I would certainly pay a few more dollars for a battery that last longer or charges more times, or weighs less, or comes in a wide range of sizes, or many other legitimate reasons why a product is not the cheapest price on the shelf. To claim that only the low priced companies can succeed is nonsensical. Quality is more important than price.

Replacing petroleum based fuel for transportation with electricity is a huge cost reducer. Generating that electricity with sustainable & renewable sources reduces fossil fuel polution also. All fossil fuels increase greenhouse gas polution into the atmosphere. World wide we are seeing an increase in alternative energy sources to power the electric grid. Batteries are the link from the sustainable energy grid to transportation.
The fossil fuel industries are unapologetic killers. All of us should support a sustainable energy policy and purchase the products that reduce demand for all fossil fuels.
I believe we also must reign in the military-industrial complex that is waging war to continue the addiction to fossil fuels, profiting at the expense of our environment.

using battery operated things is important to our future. When you eliminate the fossil fuel subsidies, including the military support of the shipping channels, then the true cost of oil will come to light- let them get their own army to bring their oil here- and then we will see who is really competitive in price.
I love using electric cars and electric tools - and we should support it to the tune of $5 billion a year, not this measly 250 milllion chump change.
We spend 80 billion a month in iraq. for what? oil? now is that not a subsidy?

Stearns is another example of the in-breeding occuring within the GOP. Considering all the current land, corporations, and organizations owned by foreign firms and governments, his cries of "national security" are pure BS.
It's just that he is a Republican, this is an election year, and everyone on the GOP side has been informed by the RNC to deride, dispute and countermand each and every single decision by the Democrats.
Stearns is a tool, in more ways than one.

Hi: Whats needed is more interest and watching of the people you GIVE money to. I don't mean more accountability reports or more bureaucratic BS, I mean real engineering and hard core business interconnections from the government to the money recipient. A Gov/private team approach to make sure the money is being optimized. If you throw money at someone and then turn your back, what do you think is going to happen!!

.....Bill

ANONYMOUS
August 10, 2012

How does direct taxpayer funding in the hundreds of millions plus subsidies of thousands of dollars per car battery qualify as "leaving this company without support". I'm a big fan of A123's technology but the company has failed repeatedly. Forget about EVs, they're not even competitive in their original power tools market. Their batteries are simply too expensive.

The Republicans may say a lot of stupid things about renewables, but in this case they are absolutely correct. Taxpayer money helped develop A123's technology and now a Chinese company will own it. That's poor policy no matter which party you prefer.

don't be silly. they already got a loan and blew it. you want to give them more? The chinese are famous for preying on the technology commons. It's nice of them to buy it, and maybe they get a few blueprints, but otherwise they would just buy a battery from A123 and reverse engineer the chemistry.

What we have to be competitive at is not just the basic research but competitively commercializing and manufacturing. So let me get this straight again, they had a $55 million charge and they need $450 million. Sounds to me like we sank $250 million of taxpayers money into a nonviable entity that would either haved failed or been sold to the chinese regardless.

My guess is, there isn't much of a market for electric cars even with modest battery improvement. Notice Bob Lutz doesn't say anything about the Chevy Volt.

You can't build an industry on government mandated purchases. The government shouldn't be loaning money to create jobs now making stuff that isn't competitive.

Different kind of question whether government should be at the more basic R&D level or whether the old model of military research leading to commercial innovation is useful. I no longer trust the basic reserach agenda of the government, myself, and don't see much future in that avenue either, but I think you can argue my views there are too pessimistic. But this loaning money to businesses that will purportedly create jobs immediately is utter bullshit. If there were real jobs to create making things people really would buy for prices they would be willing to pay, they wouldn't need government money, they could borrow in the private sector.

Sterns and the GOP has lobbied for eliminating the DOE loan program, leaving this company without support. Then Sterns complains because the company either accepts foreign interests, or goes broke and leaves all the workers unemployed. The GOP needs to get on board with renewable energy instead of pandering to fossil fuel interests.
The lack of support for this important technology is very short sighted and unwise. Hopefully the manufacturing facilities will be maintained in their present locations.